Whumptober 2019- Laced Drink
by Frankie McStein
Summary: The argument was just the first sign that something was very, very wrong.


"You haven't slept properly in over a week. All I'm saying is no one will blame you for taking care of yourself for a change."

"Our clients don't have the luxury of waiting around while I treat myself to a spa day. They need my help."

Rick and T.C had been walking to the guest house when the raised voices had caught their attention and they'd changed course. Rounding the corner, they saw Magnum and Higgins standing in front of the garage.

"I'm not trying to imply…"

"No, you're just sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."

The two men exchanged a look, eyes wide and brows raised. It wasn't unusual for Magnum and Higgins to argue; sarcasm was like a second language to them both, and there were times when the only communication they shared came in the form of insults. But it was never like this.

"Magnum, please, take a breath." Higgins voice had taken on a conciliatory tone, and she raised her hands as she spoke as if trying to calm a spooked animal.

"I don't need to 'take a breath,' Higgins." Magnum nearly spat the words. Even as he mimicked her accent, his voice was angry. "I need you to start putting the clients ahead of yourself and stop being so heartless!"

She flinched away from him as if she'd been hit, and the movement had T.C walking toward them.

"Easy, brother," he called, aware of Rick no more than a step behind him. "What's got you so worked up?" He tried to keep the worry and confusion he was feeling out of his voice, but he needn't have bothered. It didn't seem like Magnum had even heard him.

"If all you care about is the money you can make off this, if you don't give a damn about the people involved, then you shouldn't be meddling in my cases."

"I'm not meddling, I want…"

"Yes, you are. People come to me because they know that I'll do whatever it takes to help them. That I won't stop until whatever problem they're facing is sorted, and I can't do that if I'm dragging along some cold, disinterested bitch who's never cared about anyone other than herself a day in her life!"

"Hey! C'mon, man!"

"What the hell, Tommy?"

Rick and T.C both yelled at the same time, shocked by their friend's cruel words. Even their combined voices couldn't hide Higgins' gasp as Magnum's words knocked the air out of her lungs. Her face, for the second they could see it, was suddenly a ghastly white. And then she was turning away, walking into the main building without another word. T.C called after her, but she didn't respond, didn't even react, and he turned as he heard Rick's voice.

"What was that, Thomas? What happened?" They both watched as Magnum blinked at them. Sweat was beading on his forehead, and he suddenly looked ill.

"I was…" He trailed off, struggling to find the words. "I was just so angry," he managed finally. "I can't even remember what she said." He started at them, the picture of confusion. "I need to apologize." But, as he tried to turn around, his knees buckled slightly, and he ended up being propped up by his friends.

"First thing you need to do is rest. Maybe drink some water." Rick's voice was firm, and Magnum either didn't want or didn't have the energy to argue with him.

None of them said anything as they moved slowly to the guest house. Magnum was trembling slightly as he lowered himself down to the couch and, despite feeling angry at him for the way he'd spoken to Higgins, Rick and T.C were worried about him.

"Drink it slowly," Rick said as he handed Magnum a sports drink he'd grabbed from the fridge. He stood over him as Magnum sipped the drink. By the time he'd finished it, his hands had stopped shaking and he was looking more like himself.

"So… wanna explain what just happened? You and and Higgy headed out this morning, and everything was good. You come back, and you're tearing strips off her?" T.C kept his voice quiet, but there was iron in the words. He wasn't leaving without an explanation.

Magnum frowned and shook his head. "I don't even really remember. We caught our guy red-handed, his fingers actually in the till." He sounded dazed, like he was struggling to remember how to form the words he needed. "I said I'd get us both a coffee. She waited in the car." His brow was furrowed and he looked totally lost. "I don't remember driving us home." He started to say something else but swayed, his color fading alarmingly.

T.C. jumped forward to grab him as Rick grabbed for his cell. Magnum was out cold before the nine-one-one call had connected.

She'd thought at first it was just emotional pain. The shock of hearing Magnum say such awful things. But she quickly realised it was something more than that. The pounding in her head was bringing waves of pain that seemed to start at the back of her skull and then break and crash toward her eyeballs, only to recede back to the bottom of her neck where it built again, rising to the crown of her head before breaking again.

The pain in her chest she had dismissed as a side effect of the tears that were building in her eyes. But it kept growing, seeming to grow hot even as she grew cold. She rubbed absently at the spot, feeling as though she had swallowed hot coals that were burning up her body heat and leaving her skin covered in goosebumps, her limbs trembling. She tried burrowing under her blanket, but it didn't help, making her feel like she had trapped the cold beneath the quilt with her. Even Zeus and Apollo, pressed against her and whining their displeasure at their mistress' unexplained distress, didn't feel warm against her skin.

There was a rolling feeling in her gut that was making her whimper slightly every time it made her stomach lurch. The pain was getting worse, giving her the awful feeling that she couldn't sit still but hurting so much she couldn't move.

There was a banging somewhere. She couldn't work out where it was coming from. It sounded somehow far away and also right inside her head. Her heart, racing since her fight with Magnum, was lurching in her chest, beating a horrific tattoo against her ribcage. Her breath was coming in short gasps, sticking in her throat, choking her.

She wanted to call for help but didn't know who to call for. Magnum clearly wouldn't care, Rick and T.C. would be sitting with him, listening to him complain about how big a mistake it was to make her his business partner. Something inside of her twisted at the thought.

And then the thought was gone, along with every other thought. She crumpled to her bed as a cramp sliced through her, barely able to make a sound as every muscle tensed at the white-hot agony that arched her spine and stole her breath. Her hands reached for the door, begging for someone to walk through.

The last thing she heard was a frantic barking as she slumped down, slipping off the bed and landing hard on the floor. She didn't hear T.C. cautiously opening the door, worried by both her silence and the suddenly yelping of the dogs.

He had volunteered to try to talk to Higgings, to see if she was okay and to tell her about Magnum's collapse while Rick went with Magnum in the ambulance. T.C. wasn't sure Higgins would care that Magnum was on his way to the hospital after the things he had said to her, but he'd hoped she would.

He hadn't been sure if he should open with the news of Magnum blackout out or let her insult him for a while and had weighed the pros and cons of both approaches as he stood knocking on her door. He'd thought some faint noise had reached him from within and really hoped Higgins hadn't decided to ignore all three of them as a result of Magnum's outburst. And then the dogs had started barking frantically; even when they were chasing Mangum, they didn't bark like that.

So he'd twisted the handle, called out that he was coming in and to please not kill him. And then his eyes landed on her, sprawled on the floor, and he ran the few steps to her side, fumbling in his pocket for his cell.

A minute later, for the second time that day, an ambulance was dispatched to Robin's Nest.

…

"I barely even remember… any of it." Magnum sighed as he spoke. "I know we caught Taylor, but I don't remember how." He looked over at Rick who offered him a small shrug from the chair he had dragged to Magnum's bedside.

"We never got that far. All I know about what happened yesterday is you tore into Jules and then dropped."

"And then she collapsed too."

They sat in silence for a few seconds. Rick was replaying the moment T.C. had hurried into Magnum's room. Rick had been devastated to see Higgins wasn't with him, thinking she was too angry with Magnum to come and see him. And then T.C. had told him Higgins had been admitted, was a few corridors over, and that she was out cold too.

Neither of them wanted either of their friends to be alone, so T.C. had hurried back off to sit with Higgins. The two had kept in touch via The Ohana Thread to keep Kumu updated too. Message after message of 'still no change' and 'bloodwork is throwing up odd results' pinging in their cells.

Being able to write 'T.M.'s waking up' was a wonderful feeling. Receiving a message a half hour or so later saying 'Higgy too' had been dizzying.

Magnum was wracking his stubbornly blank memory, trying to recall the words he had said to Higgins. He knew they had been bad. He could remember feeling angry and wanting to hurt her. But he couldn't remember what he had said.

He remembered her face though, looking so hurt and lost. He hated that he had done that and glanced back over at Rick. "I need to see Higgins."

Rick shook his head, a stubborn look spreading over his face.

"You heard the doctor. You aren't going anywhere until your oxygen levels are a little higher. You're lucky he let you sit up." He remained utterly unimpressed by the sigh Magnum directed his way.

"I don't remember the words, but I remember how much they hurt her. I need to apologize."

"You really don't." The quiet voice had Rick and Magnum both looking surprised at the door.

T.C. seemed to be supporting most of Higgins' weight, and her face was so pale it almost hurt to look at. But she had a soft look in her eyes, almost apologetic, as she moved closer to Magnum's bed.

"Should you be walking around?" Magnum, taking stock of how weak and awful he felt, was instantly concerned about her.

She gave a weak smile. "Not at all. Scooch over." And she, with a lot of help from T.C., clambered onto Magnum's bed, settling herself next to him with a heavy sigh of relief.

"Look, Higgy, I…"

"Don't. Don't apologise for something that wasn't your fault." She gave him a look he couldn't interpret. "We don't argue like that. And, even if we did, you aren't a cruel man, Thomas. I should have realised something was terribly wrong. No hard feelings?"

He didn't try to formulate a reply, just slipped his arm around her shoulders and let her nestle closer to him. Her eyes slipped closed almost instantly, as if she had used up every ounce of energy in getting to him to set things right between them. She seemed cold to the touch, but she was lying on top of the blanket that he was under, and he couldn't move it without disturbing her. Magnum waved his hand at the spare blanket with a waggle of his brows.

A minute later the blanket was draped over them both, Higgins was fast asleep, and Magnum wasn't far behind.

"Why did you let her come here?" He roused himself enough to fix T.C. with a look that, if Magnum'd had the energy, would have been harsh. "She should've stayed in bed."

T.C. looked almost embarrassed. "Rick messaged me to say you were feeling guilty and Higgy saw it. She immediately decided she needed to tell you that you're all good. She said, if I didn't wanna help her, that was fine; she would manage on her own. And then her legs gave out under her." He looked at her with a mix of fondness, awe, and exasperation. "She wasn't gonna stop "

Magnum nodded. He was familiar with her method of dealing with her own weaknesses- brute strength and ignorance and damn the consequences. It drove him crazy when it was obvious she needed to rest up and give herself time to recover. But, he had to admit, it came in handy when the clock was ticking. And, if he was being honest, he knew he was exactly the same. If he had been willing to fight Rick for the privilege of getting out of bed, he would have been the one walking into her hospital room.

He let his head drop, tipping it down slightly so his neck wasn't at an odd angle. It meant he was practically resting his head on Higgins', but he was too tired to care. He could hear Rick and T.C. chatting quietly but didn't care to try to follow the words. He just let himself drift off.

…

He woke up a few hours later, feeling much better than before. Higgins was still asleep, still curled up against him. Even with a blanket separating them, Magnum had to admit that he quite liked the way she fit against his side. He was spared from having to look too deeply at that feeling by Katsumoto's voice.

"Good. I was starting to think you weren't going to wake up."

Higgins stirred at the sound, eyes blinking open even as her nose wrinkled and she shifted her head to hide her face against Magnum's chest. He huffed in amusement even as he ever so slightly tightened his grip on her shoulder. She gave a sleepy sounding hum in response and sighed.

"I was just talking with your doctors." Katsumoto sounded serious, and Higgins lifted her head.

She and Magnum regarded the detective with solemn looks.

"They think you were poisoned."

"Poisoned? But how?" Higgins sounded insulted, and Magnum's facial expression echoed the sentiment.

Katsumoto frowned. "I was hoping you could tell me. Do you regularly eat or drink the same things? Or visit the same places for food?"

"Hardly ever. I prefer food with actual nutritional value, which doesn't fit with Magnum's dietary preferences at all." The faint smile on her face told everyone Higgins didn't mean the barb to sting, and Magnum's answering snort told them it hadn't.

"We do have coffee most mornings," he offered. "Lately, at least." His mind whispered something about a coffee shop. He couldn't place it.

"Yes," Higgins was saying, "but we make it ourselves. And if one of us had decided to kill the other, we wouldn't have ended up in hospital. We'd be in a funeral parlour."

After a split second's consideration, Magnum gave a nod of agreement. "I wouldn't use poison to go after someone anyway." His disgusted tone spoke volumes about his opinion of poisoners.

Higgins winced slightly, making everyone wonder, not for the first time, about the type of assignments she had done while working for MI6. But she started talking before anyone could ask anything. "I'm not a fan either. Far too high a possibility of collateral damage. It would be much easier to arrange for some sort of incident." She didn't look at any of them as she spoke, and her voice took on an almost lecturing tone.

"Everyone knows I'm practically half zombie before I have my coffee in the morning, so an unfortunate fall down the stairs would be easy to explain. And it would be the work of moment to sabotage the surf ski or the Ferrari. A car crash would be easier to account for, but the surf ski would be cheaper to replace." She stopped abruptly, looking around at their faces.

"What? I'm just talking off the top of my head. It's not as if I've given it serious consideration. This month." But she was smirking as she said it, and three of the four men grinned.

Katsumoto just raised an eyebrow. "I'm glad you can joke about it. Because at the moment we have no way of tracking down whoever did this."

That made the mood drop a little. But not that far. Because, the fact was, they all knew they wouldn't rest until whoever was responsible was facing justice. HPD might not have any options open to them, but Magnum and his ohana had all kinds of avenues they could pursue. They knew that, even though it might take a while, the person behind this would pay.


End file.
